THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE IMMIGRANTS

THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE IMMIGRANTS; Muslims Face Deportation, But Say U.S. Is Their Home

By DIANE CARDWELL

Published: June 13, 2003

They are husbands and fathers, working immigrants who have been in New York for years. Some are married to women with green cards, and some have children who are American citizens. But because they are from predominantly Muslim countries, they say, they face deportation even though they have only small glitches in their citizenship applications.

''We are like everybody else in here: we started a life,'' said Sameh al-Qoudoh during a news conference yesterday at a Brooklyn Arab-American service center. ''We don't know what is going to happen if we can't live here.''

Mr. Qoudoh, who is from Jordan, said he has been working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, driving a cab to save enough money for an immigration lawyer. He is one of more than 13,000 Arab and Muslim men across the country who could be deported under a federal registration program that is part of the government's counterterrorism strategy. He and several other men, accompanied by their families, spoke against the program in the news conference at the Arab-American Family Support Center, a nonprofit social service agency in Brooklyn.

Under the program, male noncitizens older than 16 from certain predominantly Muslim countries are required to appear before immigration authorities and offer proof of their status. About 82,000 men were registered in immigration offices across the country.

A few who registered have been linked to terrorism, but the 13,000 or so who have been issued notices to appear before an immigration judge are considered to be living in the United States illegally, because of inconsistencies in their documents or because of improperly filed applications, their advocates say.

''Families who came to the United States to realize the American dream, who chose to abide by the law and to cooperate with the immigration authorities, have been singled out on the basis of their ethnicity and religion,'' said Emira Habiby Browne, executive director of the Brooklyn center.

Johanna Habib, the staff lawyer at the center, said that if the men were found to have been in the United States illegally for more than a year and deported, they could be barred from returning for at least 10 years. ''So if they leave their U.S.-citizen kids here, they can't come back to see their kids for 10 years,'' she said.

Greg Palmore, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees detentions and deportation, said that if the men left voluntarily, though, they could ask to return in five years.

Many of the men who have been told to appear for document checks had small discrepancies that could be cleared up before a hearing, Mr. Palmore said, but he declined to comment on the likelihood of deportation for those who could not. ''The burden is on the individual to prove that they are who they say they are and that they have legitimately come into the country,'' he said.

For the families, the situation is far from cut and dried. Abdel Hakim Ben Bader thought that he had applied for his green card, but learned when he went to register that the application had not been properly processed. Mr. Ben Bader, who is originally from Algeria, has been in the United States for 11 years, he said.

He and his wife now have a young son, Adam, and Mr. Ben Bader, who drives a cab, had hoped to continue his studies in computer technology.

''For 11 years, I've been thinking I'm American,'' he said. ''I feel like I was born here, you know. And if I return back, my life would be destroyed, completely.''

Photo: Sami al-Masajedi, holding his 5-month-old son, Elias, appeared at a news conference in Brooklyn yesterday to protest a government registration program under which 13,000 Muslim men could be deported. (Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)